the only one who feels alone here.

She is not the only one pulled from the world above.

She is not the only one who loves someone.

Toying with the lid, she hesitates.
"It is not my business, but you have always let me confide in you, you can always do the same with me."

She continues to turn it slowly in her fingertips. "You may be all that helped me keep my sanity...and stay human. Yet, who helps you?"

Eurydice is not -

the touch of his hands on hers is a but much, but she will not pull away. This is what she has longed for.

"...and you, my boy husband has grown up."

Fine lines of pain and sadness mark his face.

"You are more beautiful than ever."

He is.

She can not help but laugh at his disjointed responses.

She kisses him again, simply because it had been so very long, and she can.

"Should we go upstairs then? We can talk about it?"

Things feel strange to her. Air feels alien in her lungs, her senses are assailed by sights and sounds. Even -

Her fingers move over his face, as if she can stop the tears. "Don't cry. Please don't." She whispers.
Lifting her head, she kisses him softly in between words.

"Atropos helped me. She couldn't bear seeing us so miserable any longer."

Oh Orpheus.

"I'm here. I'm real."

well. There are fine lines and strands of gray woven into her lovely locks, but she is still the woman who loves him. She is the woman who has never stopped.

"I can."
She manages as she feels the warmth of his fingers touching hers.
"Orpheus."
She hasn't allowed herself to say his name since the day they were cruelly parted.
It hurt too much to think it, much less say it.

She has aged, too.
Wandering through the underworld has taken a toll on her as -

from the path she walked.
She became almost a Wraith herself no matter what Persephone and even Hades himself tried to do to stop her.

To help her.

To keep her from fading away.

..........

Raising her hand, she knocks on his door.
Marveling. It's his door. And she. She is really here.

would go utterly mad.

...and then, the music.
His voice.
Every night, he began to sing.
His achingly beautiful voice surrounded her.
She could hear him, but she couldn't reach him, and he couldn't reach her.

Back and forth, to the River Styxx she walked, wearing a deep groove in the ground-

Wait for me. Wait for me. Wait for me.
They weren't the last words she'd heard from him, but they never stopped.

The Wraiths, pitiful creatures, had heard him scream those words as she'd been pulled back into the Underworld.
The mumbled and moaned them.over and over until she was afraid she -

own business, but she's heard a few arguments over the centuries.

"You have always been strong."

She had not been here when Persephone had first been brought to this place. She had not seen her in the early days, she did not know that past.
She only knows her own.

"You kept me from going mad.
As for what goes on between her and Hades, she tries to mind her-

Even if it magnifies the guilt he already carries?
What purpose will it serve?

How can they move forward if she only weighs him down?